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Moonrise Menace (PvZH)
Moonrise Menace is an event zombie card and a member of the Brainy class. It costs 4 and has 3 /4 , and after three tricks are played in the same turn, it adds a Bad Moon Rising to the Zombie player's hand and transforms into a Howling Horror. This card was created for Gking's Halloween contest! Card Information * Class: Brainy * Tribe: Monster Zombie * Traits: None * Abilities: After you play three Tricks in a turn, gain a Bad Moon Rising and this transforms into a Howling Horror. * Rarity: Event Additional Information This card's ability activates after you play three Tricks all within a single turn. The tricks must all be played after this card is already on the board (e.g. if you play Teleport into this card, the Teleport will not count toward the three-trick condition). Howling Horror is a 6/6 Monster Zombie with Bullseye, that says 'Bad Moon Rising gives this Zombie +5/5 instead of transforming it.'. Strategies With This card is a powerful but slow zombie, and requires some degree of deck building to take advantage of it. It is understatted for its cost, hence you are unlikely to want to drop it on turn 4 since you would need additional Brains to trigger its transformation. This card fits well into a Trick-related deckstyle that has the ability to rapidly toss out Tricks. Once you have played enough Tricks, this card will become more meaningful, having a strong 6/6 statline. The Bad Moon Rising in hand can help swing the board in your favour if you have lots of Zombies already there, and it also gives the Howling Horror a massive kick. It also has the Bullseye trait, hence it cannot be ignored by your opponent. Avoid boosting this zombie unless necessary, since when it transforms all the boosts will be lost. This card can be played on curve as a distraction, however, if you already have other cards on the board. Nonetheless, it is generally better to hold this card until you can reasonably activate the ability, however if you keep this card until you are definitely ready to activate the transformation it is probably too slow a play to justify the investment. This is generally a high risk/high reward card, and a good addition to any Brainy deck centred around Tricks. This card's biggest counter is Monster Hunter Weed, which is able to destroy this with its 'when played' effect and do serious damage with the additional Silverleaf Arrows. Since this card and Monster Hunter Weed cost the same, try not to drop this on curve since it can be destroyed immediately if the plant player drops a MHW. Since Guardian heroes have plenty of other cards that can counter this but generally cannot put as much pressure on you as other classes can, it might often be best to hold this card until you can quickly drop it and transform it to surprise your opponent. Against If this card is common in the meta, tech in Monster Hunter Weed and use it to snip off Moonrise Menaces as soon as they land. The Silverleaf Arrows are also helpful to get rid of existing Menaces or those that have already transformed into Howling Horrors. This card cannot be ignored because of its Bullseye trait, which bypasses your Block Meter to do massive damage if it ever hits your face. In addition, the Bad Moon Rising in the Zombie player's hand will prove a challenge because not only will it turn small threats into much more dangerous zombies, but the Howling Horror will get pumped up. Essentially, while it is a slightly tempo loss initially for the Zombie player, this card can put a lot of pressure on you and it is good to remove it quickly. Developer's Insights This card was designed thematically as a foil to the noble Plants during Halloween, like Monster Hunter Weed. Where Plants were saving sunlight and preparing to fight the encroaching darkness, the Zombies were running wild in the shadows and new monsters arose. This card also tied in to the idea of werewolves and the full moon - what if, by playing Tricks, zombies could summon the full moon? And what if this moon had transformative powers when summoned? This connected with the already present card Bad Moon Rising very nicely. And with the whole concept of werewolves TRANSFORMING under the full moon - I was all set. In terms of gameplay, this card aims to push a Brainy playstyle of playing Tricks - lots of them, within a single turn. This was looked into in canon cards several times in the Premium set (look at Paparazzi Zombie, Mad Chemist and Trickster) but never developed. This zombie starts out weak but Brainy heroes have plenty of ways to toss out tricks and call on the full moon to wreak havoc. The 6/6 Zombie that resulted also had the advantage of Bullseye making it significantly harder to ignore, and thanks to its card text Bad Moon Rising would not remove this fantastic board asset and instead enhance it. Brainy heroes have had troubles with their own big zombies and would often rely on cards from their second class to bolster their late game. While this card's initial investment is high, the potential payoff is effective and serves to better equip the class for midrange-to-lategame showdowns. About Bad Moon Rising in general, the card started out highly rated but excitement over it quickly simmered down after players realised it was too slow and required a decent board to get value. In addition, the nerfs to Zom-blob and Medulla Nebula greatly impaired Brainy heroes' ability to generate brains on demand, forcing Brainy heroes to wait a loooong time before they could drop BMR (which, let's face it, wasn't impactful anyway seeing as how it still needed a board and if you could stick several zombies to the board you would already be in a good position to win). In short, it deincentivised the whole playstyle. This card is an indirect improvement to BMR - though it remains slightly janky, this card means you can still use it in play without it occupying a slot in your deck. Besides this, you will not have to have it sit in your hand for ages because it will simply pop out once you trigger your Moonrise Menaces. In addition, you won't have to wait til after the Howling Horror leaves the fight to BMR - the +5/5 boost is super sweet stacked on top of a Bullseye and makes it a much more satisfying play regardless of the rest of the board. Trivia * This card was created for Gking's Halloween Contest in 2018! * This card is slated to be the second Halloween Event card attached to N00bslayer2016's two-week Lawn of Doom event. * This card was inspired by werewolves and the full moon, as well as the pre-existing concept of Bad Moon Rising.